Saving lives beyond 2020: The next steps

Road safety analysis can be used to understand what has been successful in the past and what needs to be changed in order to be successful to reduce severe road trauma going forward and ultimately what\u27s needed to achieve zero. This chapter covers some of the tools used to retrospectively evaluate real-life benefits of road safety measures and methods used to predict the combined effects of interventions in a road safety action plan as well as to estimate if they are sufficient to achieve targets near-term and long-term. Included are also a brief overview of methods to develop boundary conditions on what constitutes a Safe System for different road users. Further to that, the chapter lists some arguments for the need of high-quality mass and in-depth data to ensure confidence in the results and conclusions from road safety analysis. Finally, a few key messages are summarized

Governors highway safety associations and transportation planning: Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 mandated the consideration of safety in the regional transportation planning process. As part of National Cooperative Highway Research Program Project 8-44, "Incorporating Safety into the Transportation Planning Process," we conducted a telephone survey to assess safety-related activities and expertise at Governors Highway Safety Associations (GHSAs), and GHSA relationships with metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and state departments of transportation (DOTs). The survey results were combined with statewide crash data to enable exploratory modeling of the relationship between GHSA policies and programs and statewide safety. The modeling objective was to illuminate current hurdles to ISTEA implementation, so that appropriate institutional, analytical, and personnel improvements can be made. The study revealed that coordination of transportation safety across DOTs, MPOs, GHSAs, and departments of public safety is generally beneficial to the implementation of safety. In addition, better coordination is characterized by more positive and constructive attitudes toward incorporating safety into planning

Overcoming Financial and Institutional Barriers to TOD: Lindbergh Station Case Study

While transit-oriented development has been embraced as a strategy to address a wide range of planning objectives, from minimizing automobile dependence to improving quality of life, there has been almost no examination into the practices that have resulted in the actual development of one. This study examines Atlanta’s Lindbergh Station TOD to understand how a real-world development was able to overcome the substantial development barriers that face these developments. It finds that transit agencies have a largely underappreciated ability to overcome the land assembly and project financing barriers that have heretofore prevented the development of these projects. Further, because they provide a means from converting capital investment into positive operating returns, this study finds that development projects provide transit agencies with a unique means of overcoming the capital bias in funding apportionment mechanisms. This latter factor will undoubtedly play a key role in increasing the popularity of transit-agency sponsored TOD projects in the future

Safe Streets, Livable Streets: A Positive Approach to Urban Roadside Design

Transportation safety is a highly contentious issue in the design of cities and communities. To enhance community livability, urban designers, architects and city planners often encourage the placement of street trees, aesthetic street lights, and other roadside features in a buffer zone between the pedestrian realm and the vehicle travelway. While such designs clearly enhance the aesthetic quality of a roadway, conventional geometric design practice regards roadside features located in the clear zone as fixed-object hazards, and strongly discourages their use. This study examines roadside safety in urban environments to better understand the nature of urban fixed-object crashes, as well as the safety impacts of livable streetscape treatments. While the prevailing assumption is that livable street treatments have a negative impact on a roadways safety performance, the existing empirical evidence indicates that such designs are much safer than more conventional roadside designs. Current safety objections to the use of livable street treatments are not based on empirical evidence, but are instead the result of a design philosophy that systematically overlooks the real-world operating behavior of road users. This study details the origin and evolution of this philosophy, termed passive safety, and subjects it to an empirical test to evaluate its applicability to urban arterial roadways. It finds that passive safety assumptions do not meaningfully explain empirical observations of crash frequency and severity. To enhance contemporary geometric design practice, this study then proceeds to more thoroughly examine the nature and characteristics of urban roadside crashes, and proposes a new design approach, termed positive design that better addresses the twin goals of safety and livability.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Michael Meyer; Committee Member: Adjo Amekudzi; Committee Member: David Sawicki; Committee Member: michael Dobbins; Committee Member: Randall Guensle

Graduate Certificate Program in transportation planning. Phase 2

Final report of a project to expand the graduate certification program in transportation planning at Texas A & M University to include an Executive Certificate Program by distance

Developing an Interdisciplinary Certificate Program in Transportation Planning

Final report of a project to develop and implement a graduate certification program in transportation planning at Texas A & M University

Community Design and the Incidence of Crashes Involving Pedestrians and Motorists Aged 75 and Older

"This report studies a series of negative binomial regression models to understand how urban form may affect the incidence of total and killed-or-severely-injured (KSI) crashes involving older drivers and pedestrians.